An online site for the western collector of antique bottles, gold rush collectables and early western material culture

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

210 cases of Orizaba Bitters

After spending much of my time researching the glassworks for an upcoming book, I wanted to turn my focus on possibly finding some information on some of the more obscure Western Bitters.

Since there seems to be only 2 intact examples of the ORIZABA BITTERS, I thought our followers would enjoy this advertisement from the Jones & Co auctioneers who on August 19th, 1875 is going to sell a lot of these bitters!

No known advertisements for this product have been found to my knowledge, but this does narrow the date of the bottles to approximately 1875. This time frame puts this bottle as possibly being a product of SFGW or PGW. At the time of this auction the Pacific Glass Works was just purchased by Carlton Newman, owner of SFGW. (click on illustration to enlarge).

2 comments:

Thta is a lot of Orizaba Bitters, you have to wonder where they all went? 2 Known, Where the Heck are the rest? Did they make the cases 12 or 24 count? or by the Gross (100 Count)It amazes me that some of these Rare Bottles most of us would sell out souls for, are out there somewhere and yet there is only a small quanity known. How about when your digging and you find a small corner of some embossing, just enough to know its a good one, yet there is nothing else of the bottle in the hole. Must be Bottle Trolls I tell ya. One of the Orizaba Bitters came from a collection down here in San Diego. The owner had worked for some outfit that was mapping out all over the Southwest back in the 1940's early 1950's. It was said he was in areas where bottles were just laying on top the ground and he carted off a few that caught his eye, the Orizaba was one of them. I do not know where he found it, his wife thought it might have been in the VC, Nevada area. I did get to examine the bottle before it was sold, I think the Orizaba is the Ugly Duck of the Western Bitters, Rare or Not. Yes, I would like to own it, but, not pay for it :c) DB